will pouring boiling water melt ice on driveway effectively??

Question

I've got thick ice on my driveway. If i pour hot or boiling water and then IMMEDIATELY shovel it away....will this work???

Answer 1

No, it will not. The water will chill too fast, and just freeze on top of the old ice. You may need to use an ice chopper. In the meantime, put rock salt, kitty litter, and/or wood ashes on it for traction. If you have a source of fine gravel, that would work, too.

Answer 2

I've done this to the end of my driveway, about 12'x6', and it worked fine with ice over 3" thick. There needs to be a drain off, which in my case is 5 ft away from the end of my driveway. I made sure the water would drain perfectly and not have any build up on the street. I used 2 gallon plastic pitchers with tops, spent two hours pouring the water in a pattern. Some water boiled, other just from the faucet. In the end, you break up the pattern easily with a medal shovel, ice breaker... It is dangerous, slippery and not fun, but did work perfectly in the end. - If I ever have to do this again, I will hook up a hose to the hot water heater.

Answer 3

Not likely to work, especially if it is very cold outside. Boiling water actually freezes at a FASTER rate than cooler water. You will simply end up with a bigger mess and probably more slippery ice. Salting it also will not work if the temperature is below 10 F. Sorry, but about all you can do is pour some sand on to improve the traction til the weather warms up.

Answer 4

Of course it will if you have enough. I don't know how much ice you have, but it takes a lot more boiling water than you'd imagine to melt ice on your driveway, so probably no. The only amount of ice that you could really do this on would be a patch so small you wouldn't bother removing it.

Answer 5

It will most likely make it worse, unless you have a lot of boiling water. Even then, the residual water will form a small slick of ice against the pavement, and that is REALLY hard to get up even if you are shoveling it immediately.

And you could crack pavement if the temperature change is too fast.

Whatever you do, be careful.

Answer 6

Not really. You'd need hundreds of gallons or high pressure. Best way to get rid of ice is with a 40 lb tamping bar. They're used for tamping the dirt around a fence post. One end looks like a nail head (used for tamping dirt), and the other is a blade about 3" wide (used to 'mix' quickcrete in the hole). Just drop the blade end every foot or so and it should break up in big chunks. They are about 6' long.

Answer 7

Well. there will still be a thin layer of water which will immediately freeze into a glaze. Using Rock salt is much better

Answer 8

Yes and no. It will get read (loosen) of thick ice but will leave a thin sheet of clean clear ice if it is still freezing. Unless you cover it with salt after cleaning.

Answer 9

If you don't have rock salt to ad (heavily) to what you are doing you will ADD to your problem